TY  - JOUR
AU  - Fetter,Daniel K.
TI  - How Do Mortgage Subsidies Affect Home Ownership? Evidence from the Mid-century GI Bills
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17166
PY  - 2011
Y2  - June 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17166
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17166.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daniel K. Fetter
Department of Economics
Wellesley College
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481
Tel: 781/283-2979
E-Mail: dfetter@wellesley.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2011-10-01
AB  - The largest 20th-century increase in U.S. home ownership occurred between 1940 and 1960, associated largely with declining age at first ownership.  I shed light on the contribution of coincident government mortgage market interventions by examining home loan benefits granted under the World War II and Korean War GI Bills.  The impact of veterans' housing benefits on home ownership is positive for young men, and declines with age.  Veterans' benefits increased aggregate home ownership rates primarily by shifting purchase earlier in life, explaining 7.4 percent of the overall 1940-60 increase and 25 percent of the increase for affected cohorts.  A rough extrapolation suggests that broader changes in mortgage terms may explain 40 percent of the 1940-60 increase.
ER  -